OBITUARY -- Bruce Baker

Published 4:00 am, Friday, March 15, 1996

Bruce Baker, Berkeley's police chief during five of the city's most turbulent years in the 1960s and 1970s, died of congestive heart failure March 4 in Crescent City. He was 69.

Mr. Baker was promoted to the top post in 1969, only two weeks before the series of angry demonstrations over a plot of land near Telegraph Avenue known as People's Park. He was chief during many campus and community demonstrations against the Vietnam War. "He was always a gentleman and always professional," recalled retired police Captain Michael Healy. "He was chief during a very tough time."

A native of Des Moines, Iowa, and a graduate of UC Berkeley, Mr. Baker was an Army lieutenant in the Philippines during World War II. He joined the Berkeley Police Department in 1949 and was named a captain in 1966.

In May 1969, demonstrators battled police over the university- owned land that was being used as a park by neighborhood residents. One demonstrator was killed, dozens were injured, hundreds were arrested and National Guard troops were summoned. A few weeks later, Chief Baker defended his officers before a civic group, saying the police had acted to defend "the rule of law -- without it, we will lose not only order, but an environment which will permit social change."

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In 1973, he campaigned against ballot initiatives that called for establishing a police review commission and for requiring Berkeley police to live in the city. The review commission measure passed; the residency measure lost.

In 1974, he resigned to become police chief of Portland, Ore. Shortly before leaving Berkeley, he told a reporter that the police force had "become a political football during elections and, naturally, this kind of treatment gets through to the officers."

He was top cop in Portland until his retirement in 1981. In later years, he was an active hunter, fisherman, sailor and amateur radio operator.

Surviving is his wife, Phyllis , of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico; and two daughters, Terry Costello of Fort Jones, Siskiyou County, and Jean Baker of Portland.